HEY! It's BIG business! And businesses NEED to advertise. They might as well do it for FREE. They need to reach websurfers and readers that could be tempted to click on...
I know!... How about linking themselves to blogs the world over... Especially to ones with 99.9% all women readership. It makes us soooooo happy.
The Indexed Web contains at least 15.76 billion pages (as found on http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/). I'd like to know what estimated percentage of those sites are linked to 'adult entertainment'.
The internet is no doubt a powerful tool. You can research the world's leading edge information in health, finances, science, technology. You may travel 'virtually' the world over and see shores your tender tooties will never touch. And you can find AAAaaaannnnnyyyything else you could possibly want to look for.
Most times without intending to.
My daughter was 12 at the time. She had an appointment to have her hair cut but wasn't sure what she was going to do with her hair, so I suggested she google image search the words 'short hair' to see what ideas come up. She, being almost 13, innocently added the word 'teen'. Horrified, she called to me, apologizing profusely. It wasn't her fault, but those three little words brought up hundreds of thousands of sites bearing all kinds of ideas. Only the top three sites she received in her websearch that day were all adult sites featuring young women and girls.
Think of how many young children are on the computer unsupervised everyday. Better yet, spend a half an hour typing in key words and see what websites come available to you. Spend some time playing on the internet. See how painfully easy it is to dig up anything and EVERYthing from child pornography to crime scene and morgue photos. I highly encourage you (especially if you are a parent of middle age and teenage children - but even if you're not) to see exactly how easy it is for children to come across inappropriate, unsafe and explicit content.
Now times that by even one hour a day spent on the computer times seven days a week.
Now imagine that your pre-teen has open access day and night in the privacy of their own bedroom.
Now add a webcam.
Do you think your child would NEVER seek out nudity or sex on the internet?
Well, let me ask you this? Did you ever play 'doctor' or 'house' with the neighbor kid when you were little?
The internet is the modern day equivalent of 'doctor' only it is a more sinister version played with strangers. ADULT strangers.
Think I am exaggerating?
Check out a few related statistics from www.blazinggrace.org.
* At 13.3 billion, the 2006 revenues of the sex and porn industry in the U.S. are bigger than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball combined. Worldwide sex industry sales for 2006 are reported to be 97 billion. To put this in perspective, Microsoft, who sells the operating system used on most of the computers in the world (in addition to other software) reported sales of 44.8 billion in 2006. Internet Filter Review
(I MUST ADMIT, I AM A LITTLE SURPISED ABOUT THIS ONE... MOSTLY BECAUSE I THOUGHT PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES WERE THE MOST GROSSLY OVERPAID PEOPLE)
* 60% of all website visits are sexual in nature. MSNBC Survey 2000
* The No. 1 search term used at search engine sites is the word “sex”. Users searched for “sex” more than other terms such as "games," "travel," "music," "jokes," "cars," "weather," "health" and "jobs" combined. The study also found that "pornography/porno" was the fourth-most searched for subject. Alexa Research (THE NUMBER ONE SEARCH TERM?
* 77% of online visitors to adult content sites are male. Their average age is 41 and they have an annual income of $60,000. 46% are married. Forrester Research Report, 2001
* Hollywood currently releases 11,000 adult movies per year – more than 20 times the mainstream movie production. LA Times Magazine, 2002. (AND THEY ARE ALL DOUBLE D RATED... HA)
* 1/3 of 13 year old boys in Alberta, Canada admitted to viewing porn.
From a University of Alberta Study, March 2007, as reported by thegatewayonline.ca. (Hmmm... my son is 14... ack
* 87% of university students are having sex over webcams, instant messenger or the telephone. Reuters, Ontario Canada, February 16, 2006. (RESEARCH IT YOURSELF - SEE HOW EASY IT IS TO FIND.)
* 17% of all women struggle with porn addiction. * 1 of 3 visitors to all adult websites are women. * 9.4 million women access adult websites every month. Internet Filter Review (I NEVER SAID WE WERE INNOCENT)
* 42 percent of surveyed adults indicated that their partner’s use of pornography made them feel insecure. Marriage Related Research, Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. Christian Counseling Today, 2004 Vol. 12 No. 1. (DUH...YA THINK?
Scary thought. Not every parent is internet savvy.
Even if you are internet savvy, your child could certainly 'one-up' you in this day and age. Do you know what your internet security options are?
Painfully, me neither. But I know someone who will and over the next few months a young technology buff by the name of Jaimie-Lee Wicentowich is going to provide us with some internet safety advice and security options. I'm looking forward to it.
In the meantime...
TO REAL WOMAN ON THE RUN READERS: My apologies for the SPAM that arrives in the form of comments and trackbacks in the blogs from time to time. I am doing my best to have the hosting company correct the problem. Thanks for your understanding.)